The Second Battle of El Alamein has entered history as the starting-point of the counter-offensive of the Western Allies which ultimately carried them into central Germany. The sum of that achievement has rightly been called a "mighty endeavour", and everything has to have a beginning. For a perspective, however, it is well to recall that the Axis forces at El Alamein consisted of four weak German divisions and eight Italian divisions of varying but generally unimpressive quality (a total of some 50,000 Germans and 54,000 Italians). The Axis forces on the Eastern Front in 1942 amounted to 232 divisions, of which 171 were German (including 24 Panzer divisions) - a manpower total running into millions. Against the attenuated Panzerarmee Afrika, the British Eighth Army brought 11 divisions (four armoured), 195,000 men, with crushing superiority in guns and tanks. And the Desert Air Force immediately established its own crushing superiority in the air.
- John Terraine, The Right of the Line: The RAF in the European War 1939-1945, London, 1985, p.384.
[Elsewhere in Terraine's book, he makes the entertaining observation that 'Lord [Bernard] Montgomery had a way of enunciating principles of war as though he had not merely personally brought them down, like Moses, from the high mountain, but had also had a large hand in inscribing them up there']
See also:
Blog: Meet the gang 'cos the boys are here, 15 December 2014
Blog: If all else fails, we can Pee-at them, 15 July 2012
Blog: His finest hour, 16 September 2010
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